Redemption (27 page)

By the spring of his senior year, Ryan’s letters had all but stopped, though he still called occasionally and his mother kept her posted in the meantime. By that time, the ache of missing him had softened to a kind of wistful loneliness. Kari studied hard, kept herself busy, even went on occasional dates with friends—but she always made it clear she was waiting for Ryan.

Whenever he was ready to be serious about their relationship.

In May of his senior year, he told her he wouldn’t be coming home for the summer. He was scheduled to try out at several NFL camps, and he had decided he could stay more focused between tryouts by staying in Norman.

“You watch,” he told her on the phone, “I’m gonna get drafted. Coach is sure of it.”

Then, in late July, she was chopping vegetables for soup when the phone rang.

“Kari, you won’t believe it!” Ryan was breathless on the other end. There was static in the background, and she guessed he was at a pay phone. “They offered me a contract!”

Her pulse quickened. “Who? What do you mean?” It had been a month since he’d last called, and she wasn’t sure what city he was in, let alone what he was excited about.

“The Cowboys.” He let out a hoot that echoed in her ears. “Can you believe it?”

“That’s great.” Kari wasn’t sure how to respond. “What happens now?”

“I join them for summer training. Then in fall I move to Dallas. Preseason starts in late August.”

A dozen questions banged about in her head.
What about us, Ryan? Where do I fit in? Haven’t I been patient? Haven’t we waited long enough?
She swallowed all of them. “Congratulations.” Her voice was as upbeat as she could make it. “Are you coming home first?”

“There’s no time.” He was silent a moment. “Training camp begins first thing tomorrow.”

A chilly breeze pulled her from the memory, and she tightened her jacket more closely around herself. Ryan glanced at her. “What’re you thinking?”

She smiled. “About yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” He was still holding her hand, and he slid closer to her on the bench. The warmth of his body worked its way through her, and she knew she couldn’t pull away if she wanted to. “You look cold.”

“Mmm. Yeah, I guess.”

He gazed out at his fishing line. “How many yesterdays ago?”

“A few.”

“Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve done that a lot myself lately.”

Kari dug her elbows into her knees and propped her chin on her hands. “We had our chances.”

Ryan reeled in his line and cast it again at another angle. “Why was I so stupid? Lots of guys were married and doing great for the Cowboys.” He stared at her, his eyes a deeper green than the lake water. “What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

She hadn’t really wanted to venture into this conversation, but clearly it was at the front of both their minds. An eagle soared above the treetops across the lake, and Kari closed her eyes. Something her father told her before Ryan’s graduation echoed in her mind.
A dozen guys at the university would give their right arm to take you out. If Ryan wanted a serious relationship, you’d know it by now.

Kari opened her eyes and took a drink from her water bottle. Despite her best intentions that this day be nothing more than a diversion on the path to reuniting with Tim, she leaned closer into Ryan’s shoulder. Her father had been right. What had happened during Ryan’s time with the Cowboys was better left in the past. The accident, the girl—obviously, God had never intended Kari and Ryan to be together.

Ryan released her hand and reeled in another catch.

“I haven’t even caught a sock,” she complained. They both laughed, and she helped him secure the flopping fish. “It must be your day.”

His hand came over hers as they steadied the line. He caught her eye. “It is.”

Her heart swelled, and she looked away, suddenly shy. They said little for another hour, and when Ryan had his limit, they boated back to the dock. Kari helped him cut and clean the fish at an outdoor sink near the beach, and together they built a fire in a pit on the shore. “You didn’t know we were catching dinner, did you?”

She smiled. “I guessed.”

He grabbed his backpack and two beach chairs from the back of his truck and set the chairs up near the firepit. From inside his pack he pulled out utensils and plates, everything they needed for a fish fry. Once the fire was started in the pit, he snagged a Frisbee from his backpack. They played for half an hour and then sat side by side while he cooked the fish. When they were finished eating, Ryan stood and held a hand out to her. “Walk with me?”

The temperatures were falling fast and it was dark, but Kari knew she had no choice. She was seventeen again, crazy in love with Ryan Taylor and wondering how she’d ever found the strength on that fall day to walk away from him.

He kept hold of her hand as they made their way to the shore. Long minutes passed before he stopped and took her shoulders, searching her eyes by the light of a crescent moon. “May I tell you something?”

She couldn’t find her voice, so she nodded, her gaze locked on his.

“It wasn’t fair what you did to me after the accident.”

Kari was thankful for the cover of night. Otherwise he would have seen the way the blood left her face. “What
I
did?”
How could he—

“Just leaving like that. You never even came in to see me.”

She moved back a step, and her hands fell to her sides. “You asked me to wait for you, but you promised me nothing, Ryan. You didn’t owe me an explanation. I only wished you would have told me about her before—”

“About who?” Ryan took a step forward and once more placed his hands on her shoulders. “I loved
you,
Kari.” He shook his head, and tears glistened in his eyes. “I know it’s too late. No matter what your marriage looks like, you . . . you love him. But I wanted you to know how I felt.”

Her eyes flooded, and she swallowed a lump in her throat. The determination she’d felt days ago to resist temptation, to remember she was a married woman, was fading like a springtime tulip. Her father was right—she shouldn’t have come. “You . . . you had a girlfriend in the hospital room, Ryan. What was I supposed to think?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped. Peace filled his features, and he took her hand once more. “It’s cold. Let’s go sit by the fire.” They walked a few steps, his fingers fitting between hers in a way that was so familiar it scared her. “I think we have some talking to do.”

Why was he looking at her that way? “Talking?”

“About what happened that day.” He reached out and wiped at a tear making its way down her cheek. “Even if we can’t go back, I want you to know what really happened.”

Kari nodded, terrified that somehow Ryan might have an explanation for what took place that far-off day. And if he did . . . if the only reason the two of them weren’t together today was some mistake . . .

She couldn’t bear to think about it.

He led her back to their seats. Then without waiting another moment, with a firm hold on her hand and an even firmer one on her heart, Ryan Taylor began to tell her a story she’d never heard before.

One that, had she heard it sooner, would have changed the course of her life.

Chapter Nineteen

Elizabeth sat on the living-room floor across from little Cole, helping him work a jigsaw puzzle. “Look for the edge pieces, honey.” She held up a straight-edged piece. “Like this. We have to find these first.”

John entered the room with two steaming cups of mint tea. Apple pie was baking in the oven, and the aromas mixed in a way that filled their home with warmth and peace. In the background, Kathy Troccoli sang about beauty for ashes. And as Elizabeth worked on the puzzle with her grandson, she realized her earlier fears were gone. In their place was a holy assurance that somehow everything would work out.

The troubles with Brooke and Peter. The trials with Ashley. Her own health. And even the alarming fact that Kari and Ryan had been together all day. None of it seemed overwhelming now.

John’s story had done it, of course—the way he wove Scripture into their conversation. That explained the peaceful feeling she’d had ever since. God had calmed the sea before, and he would do it again—whether it raged inside her heart or all around her.

“Did Ashley say when she’d be back?” John sat in the closest chair and rested the hot mug on his knee.

“Cole’s spending the night.” She gave John a knowing look, then smiled at the little boy. “Five more minutes, and it’s bedtime, okay, pumpkin?”

Cole nodded. “I get to sleep over, right, Grammy? That’s what my mommy said.”

“Yep, in your special bed. Billy Bear’s already up there waiting for you.”

“Know what I dreamed about, Grammy?”

“What, honey?”

“I was making the hugest sand castle in the whole, wide world, and all the sudden a big shark came right up on the beach. Only know what, Grammy?”

“What?” Elizabeth made her eyes big.

“He was a nice shark, and he sat down beside me and helped me make the sand castle, and it was the bestest one I ever made.”

The story went on to involve a variety of sea creatures and sudden storms and magic treasure. Elizabeth remembered that they had watched a nature special together a few days earlier. She marveled at how everything the little boy saw or heard became part of his reality.

“And know what happened then, Grammy?” Cole gathered himself to a standing position. He raised his hands high over his head. “A big, tall daddy came out of the water and walked up to me. He told me he’d been gone a really lot of time, but now he wasn’t going away anymore. And he said he loved me more than even the bestest little boys all over the whole wide world.”

Elizabeth blinked back tears and worked to find her voice. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart.”

They finished their puzzle, and Elizabeth and John walked the child upstairs. “Can you carry me, Papa?” Cole reached his little-boy hands up to John, and Elizabeth’s heart melted. At times like these it nearly strangled her to imagine Ashley’s boy growing up without a father.

John scooped him up. “You’re my boy, Cole. Always and forever.”

Cole responded by laying his head on John’s shoulder and wrapping his chubby arms around his neck. “I wish I could sleep over every night.”

Elizabeth trailed behind, blinking back tears as she watched her husband kiss the child’s cheek.

John’s voice was choked when he answered, “Me, too, son. Me too.”

They prayed together, tucked Billy Bear in beside Cole, and left with promises of pancakes in the morning. When they were downstairs, Elizabeth walked to the front room and stared out the window.

John was at her side instantly. “They’ll be back soon.”

She smiled. “How do you know which one it is tonight?”

“It’s Kari. She’s had the number-one worry spot for a while now.”

Her head tilted back against his chest. “But it could be Ashley.”

“True.”

“Or both of them.”

“Absolutely.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Cole.” Elizabeth felt her smile fade. She turned as John wrapped his arms around her. “It breaks my heart to see him growing up without a dad.”

John kissed the top of her head. “He’s such a great little guy.”

“You know why, don’t you?” She leaned up and wondered again at the depth of love she felt for John Baxter, a love that grew with each passing year as if there were no limits to how she could feel about him.

“Why?”

“Because he has you, of course.” She smiled but knew he could read the seriousness in her voice. “I thank God he has you, John.”

“Ashley tries.”

Elizabeth smiled in a tired sort of way. “She has so much to learn about being a mother.”

He nodded. “I watch Cole on the floor making puzzles and telling you his pretend stories about sharks and treasures and big, tall daddies, and I want to shake her and ask her, ‘Ashley, what are you doing tonight that could possibly be more important than being here with him?’ ”

Melody Blues was nearing the end of its first set at The Coffee House. Ashley Baxter and two of her friends sat at a back table, sipping mochas and comparing notes.

Her friends were nothing like her family, but they were loyal. And they didn’t expect from Ashley anything that she wasn’t willing to give. There was Anika, the Alaskan transplant who talked constantly about getting to New York and playing violin for a Broadway orchestra, and Billie, the art student who’d been saving for years to buy herself a summer in Europe. Since Ashley played the guitar and painted, the three of them fit well together. But beyond their shared artistic interests, they had something bigger in common.

Their discontentment with life.

Anika was twenty-three and divorced. Billie was living with a man twenty years her senior. And Ashley was pursued by a dozen guys every day but wanted nothing to do with any of them.

“Paris cured me of that,” she’d told her friends. And though they didn’t know the details, they were two of the only people on earth who had any idea at all of what she meant.

As far as Ashley was concerned, it was none of anyone’s business what had happened in Paris the year she was twenty-one. Well, it was fairly obvious that Cole had happened that year, but she wasn’t telling anything more. Her parents and siblings could ask all they wanted; she had no intention of dredging up the details. Not for them or anyone else.